Arlington County Fair

My Metro vest was a Reserve Grand Champion at the fair.

You've seen all these projects before, but here they are with their ribbons from the fair. I haven't knit much at all since I finished the vest with the south side knitters gave me at New Year's, but I gathered up my entries for the fair. I knew the vest would be a contender, but I never expected a grand champion ribbon. It's a first for me. For those not familiar with county fair protocols, Each department (in this case Art Needlework) is divided into Sections (in this case Knitting) and then each Section is divided into Classes (for example, sleeveless sweaters or vests, pullovers, scarves, hats, baby sets, etc) In addition all the participants are divided into Divisions (pre-K, 6-12, teens, adults). For each class there are potentially three ribbons - blue for first, red for second, white for third place. The blue ribbons from all the classes compete for Champion (first place) and Reserve Champion (second place) in the Section. Then all the eChampions compete for Grand Champion (first place) and Reserve Grand Champion (second place) in the Department. So my metro vest beat out not only all but one item in the knitting, but the crocheted items, quilts, sewn dresses, hooked rugs, needlepoint, embroidery, etc. That would be more impressive if there really were multiple entries in all those categories. I can remember when the fair was really competitive, but this year there really weren't all that many exhibitors. The judges always reserve the right not to award all the ribbons, so my sweater ascended up the competition even though it was only the Reserve Champion in knitting (the pink rosette ribbon in the picture) The Grand Champion was a lovely knitted lace shawl. I entered the Jitterbug cabled sleeveless sweater almost as an afterthought and it won a blue ribbon. (I entered it in the pullover category because you can only enter one item per class, and I entered the other vest in the sleeveless sweater category. ) I entered the scarf in the "exhibitor's choice" class, a catch all for items that don't clearly fit in other classes. I entered it together with the hat I designed and a short narrow scarf to show how the hand-dyed yarn produced three entirely different designs with the same stitch in different widths (fractals), and the set won a red ribbon (2nd place). The judge wrote nice comments on the back of the entry tags: "Gorgeous color and design work, beautiful stitching, woven ends need to be clipped" and 'wonderful cable pattern and beautiful use of fine multi-colored yarn. Reminded us of a Monet garden" for the south side vest and "Great stitches and use of multi-color yarn" for the scarf/hat set.

I encourage all you young knitters to seek out your local county fair and enter your knitting and other crafts. It's fun and gratifying, but not nearly as satisfying as when there was real competition. I'm afraid my old competitors have died off or gone blind and too arthritic to enter the fair, and the creative new generation of knitters isn't aware of the fair tradition. (Or maybe with blogs and websites satisfy the need to share and make the fair tradition totally unnecessary. ) Once again, as a bleeding edge boomer, I'm caught between two models, a bridge between generations. My grandfather was a professional fair manager - in the first decade of the 20th century he was manager of the Van Wert (Ohio) County Fair, and later was the full time manager for the North Carolina State Fair and then the Ohio State Fair. So I'm his direct descendent, but I'm also a contributor to this blog and Ravelry. Have you all seen a butter cow?

Last year when my job was less stressful I knit up a storm. Since January I've been sucked back into the mainstream implementing the Recovery Act/Economic Stimulus programs at my agency and I find I have no creative energy at all. I've tried three times to start a new project and keep coming up empty. Hopefully the economy will recover and so will my knitting, soon.

Though warm feet are not appealing at the moment...

Socks = done!

These were great! I loved knitting with the yarn (plucky merino superwash fingering), and though I didn't work on them consistently, when I did they felt like they knit up fairly quickly. Kirsten Kapur's patterns are great, and this one was nice and clear and had a chart that I only had to use at the beginning and then for the lacey leaves at the top of the sock.

What socks to knit next??

new favorite knit cafe

So the espresso machine won't be installed until later this afternoon, and the walls still need some decorations, but I've got a new favorite place to knit. Which is good, because the knitting that you see on the chair is about all the progress I've made toward my summer knit list. (Yes, that does mean that I've already blown past one deadline. They were self-imposed, okay?)

I may have claimed this chair, but there's another one waiting whenever any of you want to come visit.(There's more seating across the room, so multiple of you can visit at once!)

A little knitting, and life

I don't have any new knitting pictures (mostly because the light is on the wrong side of the street by the time I get home these days) but there's nothing much new to share at any rate.

• I'm one and a half socks down on this project, and pretty excited about finishing these up and....casting on another pair of socks?! Crazy, but I kinda think so.
• I did cast on for the honeybee stole, but I got about 2 repeats in before I got sick, and my arms are still tired at the thought of working on that shawl.
• I thought I was nearing the end of another project that I've purposely taken no pictures of yet, but then I did some measuring, and it turns out that I'm maaaaaaybe halfway done. Whoops! Better get to knitting.

The good news is that I have a nice 15 minute bus ride (seriously, shorted commute ever) in which knitting happens.

To make up for the lack of knitting pictures, here are a few from a recent trip I took into King's Canyon with my brother and sister.
John Muir called this meadow the jewel of the Sierra. It was pretty amazing.

As was the brown bear my siblings and I saw on the way TO the meadow. BEAR!!!

But nothing was better than the bear cubs. Wild baby animals that could kill me! YAY!

Under the cut, some random iPod whining:
I updated my iPod with new music last night (Regina Spektor! old/new M. Ward!) and created a few new play lists for work. Very exciting! But then today, while at work, I find that the device won't recognize any of my music. This is pretty disheartening, but after some extended Googling when I got home, I found I could open up some hidden folders and copy the music to my hard drive, and then could do scary "restore" things to the iPod. Rock! But then more confusing technical things happen, and that doesn't work. The files I could once see disappear, or claim to be missing. They're still on the iPod. An iPod music copying software thingy can see it, but the act of copying just doesn't work.

Le sigh.

It's my own fault, I know, for not backing up my music, but oh lord, the thought of digging up my CDs from the basement and then putting them all back on this computer fills me with dread. And I'll still be missing some key emo tunes. Tragedy! Ok, thanks for letting me vent, knitters and crafters. I'm going to go knit out my sorrows now!

Is this lace?

I've blogged lots of pictures of this project, just because I love it so. But, I finally blocked my Fathoms Below, and have to share the finished product with you all.



Designed by grumperina as the Mother of Pearl scarf, and knit with my birthday Hear Me Now pluckyknitter yarn, I really wanted to keep knitting this scarf forever.



The yarn was so soft, and every stitch brought a new color, and as winter melted into spring and spring into summer, the changing light changed the elements of color in the yarn and seeing them come together in this pattern made me incredibly happy.

Mine isn't as long as grumperina's, but I love it muchly nonetheless. (But, is it lace? I need outside advice!)

Baby's dress

Continuing my sewing, thought I would catch you up on a project I did a few months ago. This was my first little dress I made, for my niece. I forgot to take pictures before I sent it and had these emailed, so they don't have closeups of all the details I would like to show off, unfortunately.

From the front

And the back. One of my proudest things was the zipper down the back that you can hardly see here. I was very happy with how it turned out given it was my first zipper.

I continue to love to sew, but I also plan on doing some more knitting, so perhaps my posts will be more on topic. I'm making a re-make of the baby blanket I posted a few months ago. The sex of the baby is undetermined, and I'm trying to choose colors now. Suggestions? I love most colors, so choosing two is always difficult.

These may look familiar...

I think one of the reasons that knitting continues to be something that I enjoy and want to continue with is that the craft is a constant source of learning. And it's a learning process that very much has to take place as a learn-as-you-go, which is also very satisfying.

It's not just that you learn new techniques (I <3 Magic Loop!) as you go along, or that you figure out how to correct mistakes (being able to unknit a few stitches still makes me really happy), but the community of knitting, and how we as people function within it is so interesting and (at times) satisfyingly methodical. Maybe this is stuff that other people get more immediately than I, but I still find it rather fascinating.

These mittens are a perfect example of that. Before "publishing" a pattern, one (of course!) must get it test knit by other knitters. It's the editor job of the knitting world, and so so fun!

Not only do you get a first run at a new pattern, but you can to participate in the art of creation. (And sometimes you don't even have to provide the yarn!)

Ms. HEB designed these mittens as a gift for a friend, and after several requests on ravelry, decided to publish an official pattern for them. I was lucky enough to win one of the test knitter positions.



As this picture shows, these mittens are awesome. They're perfect for surprise chilliness in relatively warm weather, and fit perfectly under light sweaters or jackets.*

Furthermore, they use up hardly any yarn. Two whole pairs can be knit up with one skein of plucky fingering, and it goes fast, and can be accomplished while writing a thesis!



So, test knitting. One more box on the "now I get it" knitting check list. If you're still on the cusp of the knitting life, come on in. The weather is perfect for fingerless mittens.

*In fact, I finally sewed the ends in on these when I was house sitting and suddenly there was all-day-long foggy, chilly weather and I had only packed summer clothes. Thank you, HEB mittens, for preventing pneumonia!